The Ford E-Transit is one of many electric vans now on the market
Fleets hit pause on transitioning to large electric vans despite claims of over 300 miles of range
A Fiat E-Scudo set the Guinness World Record for the greatest distance travelled by an electric van in a single charge on 29 July: 311.18 miles.
It’s proof that plug-in LCVs are heading in the right direction, but not enough to convince fleets running large vans to make the leap from diesel. The range of bigger electric vans is particularly sensitive to payload, and many businesses have scaled back their electrification plans until models with greater ranges and better able to handle heavy loads become available.
“Electric vans have always been a bit of a struggle, because there’s a question of whether the larger ones are actually capable of doing the job,” said Ben Edwards, consultant at Arval, the UK’s third-biggest vehicle leasing company.
“We already know that when a car says it will do 280 miles – but you’ve got five people in it and your boot’s full – your range is significantly less. Well, most vans don’t go out empty; engineer vans and utility vans are full most of the time, so those ranges need to be [more] realistic.”
For businesses in this demographic, the advice is to run down the clock on diesel vans and wait until plug-in equivalents have the necessary laden range to cope.
“You are going to order diesel right up until the deadline,” explained Edwards, “there’s some nice stuff coming through… but especially for those large vans – 3.5 tonnes, and you might well be towing a digger or something like that – an electric van just isn’t feasible at this stage. There isn’t a product that can do it, and by the time you’ve got them loaded, your range is pitiful.”
His statements were backed up by the Association of Fleet Professionals, which claimed its members were holding off on electric LCVs for exactly these reasons.
“Many of our members who were committed to electric van adoption as soon as supply was available have slowed or even put a temporary halt on the rate of acquisition,” said chairman Paul Hollick, “they are hitting a range of operational issues – range, payload, charging infrastructure and more – that means replacing existing diesel vehicles directly with electric equivalents is not yet practical.
“This doesn’t mean that they are intending to resist electrification but that more work needs to be done in all kinds of areas including domestic and public charging, changes in operational practices and improvements in the vehicles themselves.”
Edwards said fleets new to electric vans would be better off initially running them in smaller capacities, so operators could get used to them ahead of a wider rollout when more capable models are available.
“With cars, it’s just a blanket approach; it’s a much bigger project for vans,” says Edwards, “you really need to tailor and target certain sectors, and not everything is going to be able to be done now. It’s about cherry picking those areas where it can be done, building your experience with it, looking at your downtime and at your charging opportunities. Do it on a case-by-case basis.”
